Mayor should admit to being part of the problem

May 11, 2013

You gotta love Mayor Alan Arakawa. The May 4 article about his budget is a gem. He says that he wants more money and increased taxes to repair the decrepit infrastructure created by neglect by our past governments. Honorable, Mr. Arakawa, but wait.

He has been our highest placed county leader for seven of the past 11 years. He was also a member of the County Council for eight years prior to that. That means he was part of the problem for 15 years out of the past 20.

He should take responsibility for his actions. I'm not sure the kind of spin he used to justify this is worthy of a 19 percent salary increase. Maybe we should cancel all of the raises granted to the county government and use that money to repair the infrastructure. After all, according to the mayor, it was the government that created the problems.